Kyoto in the morning, Hiroshima in the afternoon - that was the plan today. We were super sad to leave Kyoto after only 2 and a half days - we could easily have spent a week here. We think you probably need 4 days minimum in Kyoto if you decide to go - it's super Boston-like and just adorable. Something we have noticed about Japan cities is that they are HUGE - sprawling. Kyoto has so much everywhere that it was impossible to see it all in a few days.
Still having a couple more temples to see, we woke up really early at around 5:30am (4:30pm for EST) and did our own temple run.
We first visited Kiyomizu-dera, which was up the hill from us, so our jog quickly became a walk as the hill was wicked steep. It opens at 6am, so we were there with the few that woke up early with us. Pro being that you could see this crazy-busy temple with only a couple of your closest friends; con being that a few sections were closed until around 9am. Either way, gorgeous views of Kyoto and temple. We even saw a mini-bamboo forest as we left, so we decided not to go to the bigger one (that, and oh, you guessed it - it started RAINING after we got done with our run...so yeah).
After Kiyomizu-dera, we had a long run down to Fushimi Inari-taisha. This is probably the most Instagrammable temple (ironic considering Tsana doesn't have Instagram), and something a lot of you may have seen before. Its open 24 hours a day, and can get quite busy we've heard, but since we got there pretty early it wasn't that bad. The actual shrine is actually at the top of Mount Inari, which we started to climb up, but after a quick google found that the hike can take 3-5 hours so we gave up on the quickly (and if you know Tsana, you know she doesn't hike).
It was a 3 mile run back to home where we packed up the rest of our things, but not before ducking under a VERY low underpass (pretty sure we were supposed to go over this)....
And Dave finding a few kids to run with on the way to school... (saddest thing is that they weren't at all tired, while Dave and Tsana were gasping for air)
We headed to Kyoto train station and locked our bags up (our new favorite thing) and tried to find some lunch. (Note: the taxi driver on the way there was the best and brought out some furbies that repeated what we said the entire time - hilarious. We are such tourists.)
We were craving something healthy and fresh, and found a nice place called Veg-Out! (yes, with the exclamation point). We each got a vegetable platter that came with a little salad, some falafel and other things; it was exactly what we needed.
After lunch it wasn't too much longer until we jumped on the train and headed for Hiroshima, albeit crying leaving Kyoto (see pic below of us leaving our freakin' adorable house). Enter Dave's fav - the bullet train, and we arrived in Hiroshima less than 2 hours later.
We found our apartment pretty easily and headed out to eat the famous Okonomiyaki. Hiroshima is supposed to be the best place for this and we found the best place online and it was just a 5 minute walk from our place. We waited in line for about 30 minutes (this place is known to have lines beyond 90 minutes, so not bad).
Dave ordered the garlic version (see menu above) and Tsana ordered a vegan version.
Now this was probably at the top of Dave's list of things to eat while in Japan, and we were both very...well...unimpressed.
It was probably Japans equivalent to a Rochester Garbage Plate, (all you RIT-ers know it best) but not as good, it was just a bunch of ingredients slopped together that at the end of the day didn't taste like much. The saving grace of the dish was the Kewpie mayonnaise that you smothered it with. Add to to-do list: buy kewpie mayo for home.
Hiroshima was super bustling at night (as all Japanese cities are), but us being old, retired for the night at a healthy 9pm after looking around town, and finding Dave some weirdly flavored Kit Kats (so far on our trip, he has gotten melon, strawberry, peach, and cookies & cream).
Tomorrow on the agenda: Peace Memorial Museum (Atomic bomb memorial museum), river trekking (too far out of town, and they don't provide transport, so we canceled), Miyajima island, and hopefully some mazemen for dinner.